Hypnobirthing

   Alright. There are probably many of you who didn't know, and should try not to be too shocked when I tell you, but.... I'm kind of a hippie. I know it might not be evident because I shave, shower, wear deodorant, eat meat, and many other things that hippies don't typically do, but trust me-I'm definitely on the spectrum.
    I say this because I do, think, and believe a lot of "odd", outside-the-mainstream things. For example: I believe in treating sicknesses with herbs, and have every scripture in the LDS standard works referring to herbal medicine memorized; I don't wear antiperspirant, because I believe that our bodies need to sweat (and keeping them from doing so is unhealthy), so I just wear natural deodorant from Whole Foods; I've participated in the process of allergy removal, wherein the body is reconditioned to respond properly to a substance (or emotion) that has previously stressed it abnormally; I'm learning how to muscle test; I believe that the shapes, colors, and patterns in our irises can tell us what is going on inside the body; and I believe that cancer cells can be shrunken and eliminated in the body by eating a whole foods diet and using specific herbal supplements.

  Those are just a few of my outside-the-norm ideas, to give you an idea of the kind of hippie that I am. So hopefully you're prepared to hear about my newest hippie belief: Hypnobirthing.

   I heard about Hypnobirthing from my friend, and fellow hippie, Mary. The philosophy behind Hypnobirthing is that a pregnant woman's body knows how to labor and give birth instinctively, without medical intervention and-here's the hard to believe part-without pain. I'm sure that many of you will immediately dismiss this idea as "hippie nonsense", but stay with me for a minute. Have you ever heard of African women who simply lean against a tree and-without a fuss- bring their own babies into the world? Or maybe Asian women working in the rice paddies who squat, birth their babies, then strap them to their backs and continue working? This sounds completely unbelievable to the North American woman whose picture of childbirth seems to invariably be accompanied by screaming, excruciating pain, and the (very stereotypical) yelling something to the effect of "YOU DID THIS TO ME" at the helpless husband as he attempts to comfort her.
  Why? Are North American women's bodies built differently from Asian or African women's bodies? No. Are those other women smarter or more educated than we are? I believe that intelligence is the same across the world, but North American women tend to be more educated than women in rural areas of 2nd and 3rd world countries. So what's the deal? 
   The bulk of the problem is cultural expectation. Our culture dictates that childbirth is a medical crisis deserving of all the drama we'd expect from an episode of E.R., and most women respond accordingly. Most of us grow up being taught to fear childbirth. We're fed terrifying depictions of childbirth in movies and TV, along with the graphic, detailed war stories of other moms we come in contact with from a young age. In my experience, the war stories intensify dramatically in frequency and detail once we ourselves become pregnant, which only serves to frighten and traumatize us, the pregnant women, even more. And it's not as if those scared pregnant women can later point back to those stories as actually being helpful, and think "wow, I'm so glad Susie told me how horrific her birthing was." Hearing those scary stories can't really help the pregnant woman somehow prepare to avoid her own scary experiences. Those stories actually do much more damage than good, yet many women in our culture can't seem to stop spreading them- like viruses. This is actually another large part of the problem: fear.
   As I've said before, our bodies know what they're doing during labor and birth, but when we're racked with fear (stemming from any number of sources), our bodies go into fight/flight/freeze mode and we tense up our muscles-including the muscles that are in charge of birth. This makes everything our body is wanting to naturally take care of suddenly very difficult and painful. The muscles in the cervix that are in charge of keeping the baby inside the womb until the right time, but then relax and let go during birth, don't let go like they're supposed to, so a battle begins between the top uterine muscles and the cervix muscles. Eventually the uterine muscles win the battle (since the baby eventually comes out), but not without causing considerable pain to the losing muscle group. So basically, when the mother is experiencing fear, she becomes tense. When her body is tense, the natural process is hijacked and instead of childbirth occurring the way it should, it becomes a painful and traumatic experience.
   So in my Hypnobirthing classes, and in the book by Marie F. Mongan, a huge part of what we learn is how to keep ourselves calm and relaxed, to release the fear we've been harboring, perhaps since childhood, and to establish new expectations for how our own birthing is going to play out. And don't worry, we also learn the normal prenatal class stuff concerning the anatomy and terminology of labor and delivery, but the things we practice and think about every day are the relaxation exercises. The method of self-relaxation and fear release taught in Hypnobirthing is guided imagery, or self-hypnosis. Hypnosis often gets a bad rap because of the stage hypnotists that "make" people do crazy, silly things onstage, or the guy from "Office Space" who gets put under by a hypnotherapist who proceeds to have a heart attack and dies before he can bring the guy out of hypnosis, so he stays hypnotized for the rest of his life.
    Try for a second to put those images out of your mind, as hard as that might be, because it's really important to understand first of all that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. The "hypnotizee" is completely in control of their own hypnotic state, and can become more or less aware or relaxed at will. In my experience, it takes a lot of practice to keep myself relaxed and focused for longer than a few minutes at a time, and if there are any suggestions I hear while in that state that don't jive with what I already know or believe-or seem unpleasant, my instinct is to come out of the hypnosis right away and be fully aware again. I'm completely in charge.
   It's because of the negative stigma attached to self-hypnosis that I usually use the term "guided imagery" when describing the relaxation exercises that I do every day to prepare for labor. It's interesting too, because I'm already familiar with guided imagery since I've used it over the past few years to cope with anxiety. I'll admit though, that I'm much more committed and consistent with the birthing guided imagery than I've previously been with the coping-with-anxiety guided imagery. Practicing being calm and relaxed every day has been pretty great, as I'm sure you can imagine, and focusing that relaxation and positivity on childbirth has helped me to look forward to the big day with joy and anticipation instead of dread, fear, and anxiety. In fact, after last week's Hypnobirthing class I felt so calm and confident that I was ready for Henry to come that same day!
  Just in case any of you mothers out there are thinking to yourselves, "yeah, that's all well and good for you, but just you wait..." or "you don't know how hard it is and shouldn't judge me for the way I gave birth..." I want to be sure you understand a couple of things: 1- I'm in no way judging or looking down on you! I'm not writing this blog post to make any of you feel upset or guilty, or anything negative about how you birthed your baby/babies. I haven't experienced what you have, nor have I experienced giving birth (yet), and  2- You're right, it may seem like it's all well and good for me to write about how great Hypnobirthing is without having proven it for myself, and maybe when it really comes down to it I'll be singing a different tune. I don't know- it's possible. I can't see the future. My birthing experience could go one of a thousand different ways. I could end up doing things very differently than I've been anticipating, and no one but God knows how that's gonna go down. Even if it is the case that things don't go according to plan and medical interventions are necessary, I think I'll still be really grateful for what I've learned in my Hypnobirthing classes. Instead of feeling increasingly terrified as the due date gets closer (which is exactly what happened before our classes), I'm actually looking forward to the big event. I've talked excitedly with Jeff (and Baby Henry) about how great it's going to be to have our baby in our arms so we can hold him and kiss him and just look at him, and the love that we have for each other and Baby Henry has increased as we've had those fun conversations. It feels so great to be happy and excited about the impending birth, instead of completely full of dread. I believe that Little Man picks up on how I'm feeling, and it's nice for him to feel so welcome and loved instead of dreaded and feared.
   Additionally, I feel like if unpleasant things are going to happen to me, they're going to happen to me-whether or not I've lost sleep constantly worrying about them. In fact, I believe that worrying about them only makes them worse, because not only has that unpleasant thing happened to me, but by the time it has, I've spent so much time being miserable about it that I haven't enjoyed my life! So I learn what I can, I keep myself informed (since I don't believe that keeping myself ignorant will help anything), but I don't worry about things going awry. So for the next 4-ish weeks, I'll prepare for and expect the best, and if that's not how it goes, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
   So there you go. Even if you're not a hippie like me, I think that Hypnobirthing is worth looking at. I especially think that guided imagery/self-hypnosis is worth looking at for dealing with the stresses/problems of everyday life. A lady named Belleruth Naparstek (rad name, right?) does a whole series of guided imagery CDs that you can find on amazon that cover everything from PTSD to Helping With Anger and Forgiveness to  Increasing Self-Confidence. She's pretty great and has helped me to cope with stress and anxiety over the past 2-ish years. I highly recommend her work.
  
 Are there any other hippies like me out there? Or am I the hippiest of all of my friends? :)